I wonder! Why in this last Barsoom novel! Which is admittedly regarded by all as a self-parody! Why it has so darn many! Exclamation points!

Does this get better soon? The first few episodes were sort of ok but by the time Non Sequitir hits this is just abysmal! So much happening for no reason! Pointless chase scenes! Bad dialog. I want to like this show but this season so far is disappointing me a lot. Not giving up, however.

This is not the best of the Barsoom books, but like all of them this collection of serial novellas (better named “The Perils of Llana” who takes well after grandmother Dejah Thoris in getting into one scrape after another) it has some fun to offer. So far this is largely in the form of swordfighter trash talking as John Carter winds up getting pitted against the best swordfighter each of the many cultures who hold Llana captive has to offer, each of whom is locally regarded as “The Best Swordsman on Barsoom.” But there can be only one, and it’s John Carter of Helium/Virginia. Kaor!

This book also contains one of the most amusing depictions of the consequences of invisibility, maybe ever.

Watching scientists solve crimes is kind of old hat nowadays, what with the big burly CSI franchise and Numb3rs and all. That said, there is still territory to explore that they don’t, and some of that is explored here in Eleventh Hour (also in the short-lived Tim Guinee vehicle Strange World, with which this show has more than a little in common, but less with the sci-fi paranoia and more with the genuinely tragic), by the always-wonderful Patrick Stewart.

I say always wonderful because he is, he is, but really he’s not giving that much to do here relative to his talents. That’s ok; his acting chops get a break to service the storytelling, which is good. Here he is a government science advisor, given a free hand to investigate abuses of science like… botched attempts at human cloning… water from a spring that is claimed to cure cancer… as well as cover-up attempts of promising or important research. The writers wisely resist the temptation, for the most part, to set up straw men for him to knock down, so there are no anti-vaccination nutters, creationists or (at least not much) alternative medicine practioners to tilt with. He is stalked, though, by radical animal rights people, which is why he has a bodyguard—a pretty young woman, naturally, a non-scientist to serve as the Doctor’s companion and say “what’s that?” but also someone to provide the action scenes (and in one case the stilted sex scene).

I’d like to see more of this series—and am told another version with another actor is kicking around out there. Because Patrick Stewart’s Patrick Stewartiness is by no means vital to this character, I’m cool with that and will hunt it out.

I didn’t realize until I listened to a little of the audio commentary that Neverwhere had originated with this TV show. I can’t account for this gaping hole in my knowledge about things Gaiman, but I won’t conceal it either. That said, I could see the novel struggling to get out of the constraints of the teleplay, especially given those constraints originated as much with the BBC’s budget and production schedules as with the limits of episodic television writing itself - to move the story along, keep it spare, focus on the plot. While these are also constraints in comic book writing, Gaiman has said many times that he really likes to sprawl. I could feel him wanting to sprawl as I listened to his commentary (but the commentary was so dull - delicious as Gaiman’s voice is—that I stopped listening after episode 1).

As for the show itself, it had a lot going for it, including some very good casting and a certain charm imparted by its on-location sets made funkily unrealistic by, as Gaiman explained “shooting them on video but lighting them for film.” I have no idea how that works, but it did give a goofy Tom Baker-and-earlier-era Doctor Who feel to the production. I kept expecting wobbly sets, wobbly sets.

Having already read and loved the novel, the show had no surprises for me, but watching someone’s version of how it looked and sounded was fun. Realizing this is how the story evolved first was (pardon me) funner.

I’m very pleased to see some true moral complexity develop in the Barsoom saga with this book. As John Carter, Warlord of Mars, goes undercover to rat out an assasin’s den in Zodanga - the very first city he conquered in his quest to win his bride - he finds himself confronting the consequences of that long-ago victory in a very surprising way. I’m only midway through at this point so the question of how he finally handles it is still open, but I look forward to this development and hope that Burroughs didn’t take the easy way out.

Much as I love the various members of the Carter family, I’m loving this novel most of all of Burrough’s Barsoom novels so far. The reason isn’t hard to guess: it’s the character of Tavia. I had pretty much just chalked these books up as enjoyable pulp with all the cliches—including the notion that women were something to be rescued and adored only. I was wrong!

Tavia buckles a swash as well as any red fighting man of Mars, and displays infinite patience with the lunkheadedness of her sweetheart in the process. She is a kick-ass heroine and I look forward to seeing how she finally gets through to her blockhead—and if she’ll exceed his body count.

With scenes that match exactly the framing and imagery of actual panels from the graphic novel, casting that was obviously done in most cases (but not all*) based on getting the look right more than the characters as a whole, and PERFECT set design, this movie has to be one of the most visually faithful adaptations of all time. And that is in itself very satisfying.

But that is not all. There is some brilliant casting here. I refer chiefly to Jackie Earl Haley, who will turn your bowels to water in or out of his Rorsach mask. It’s worth the price of a movie ticket just to see the people he’s put away over the years locked into a prison with him. That’s some riveting movie-making right there. It’s been over a week since I went to see this and I still have every frame of those scenes before my mind’s eye.

On the dumb side – Worst. Sex Scene. Ever. Even Leonard Cohen couldn’t save it. Funny at the end though.

And speaking of the endings—I think half of why Alan Moore is still in such a snit over this film is that the screenwriters and Snyder came up with a more logical and more elegant and relevant ending to the story, one that actually is developed in the characters and their actions. I was deeply impressed by this.

All in all, I’m going to say this film is really for fans. If you already know and love Watchmen (or if you were a teenager during the Reagan years when it was originally published), this film has a lot to love. If you came to this new or with expectations that it was going to be another big Marvel blockbuster or something, you’re probably still pissed and trying to get your money back.

I dug it.

These books are so refreshing! I am realizing more and more how steeped in cynicism and anti-heroes I have been for such a long time (even my comic-book reading tends more towards the Spider Jerusalems and the William Gravels). When Edgar Rice Burroughs is in charge of the pen, the heroes are handsome, invincible, always right, and always win. And that is fun!

I’m only on Disc 1, and love it already. Key things to love: the crew members have a serious wow factor going on. They are palpably excited with each new encounter, each chance to try out new toys that were standard issue/old hat even in the original Trek series. Also digging how real “mundane SF” issues are entwined with the character-driven stories, especially the fact that a genuine linguist is part of the crew and having real issues with e.g. conjugations and dialects and vocabulary. As a language nerd myself, how can I not love that?